R15 million 'emergency bill' for Durban beach repair scheme

Five Durban beaches are finally getting a badly-needed infusion of sand – but the emergency operation will cost ratepayers at least R15-million in extra costs because of lengthy failures by the municipality and Transnet to repair the city’s sand-pumping scheme.

Last week‚ a massive black plastic pipeline‚ reminiscent of a giant sea serpent‚ began to spew out a slurry of sea water onto the severely-eroded remnants of North Beach.

Over the next three weeks‚ the temporary ship-to-shore pipeline will be shifted to four other beaches - Dairy‚ Suncoast‚ Country Club and Sunkist - to replenish the sand and also prevent Durban’s popular promenade from washing into the Indian Ocean. All these beaches will be closed off in stages and then re-opened as the sand pumping and levelling process proceeds.

The massive operation follows severe erosion over recent years exacerbated by the equinox spring high tides in February.

City officials have sought to blame the erosion on climate change and the proliferation of illegal sand-mining operations in several KwaZulu-Natal rivers‚ but enquiries by TimesLIVE suggest that the immediate cause has been the ten-year delay by Transnet and eThekwini Municipality to reinstate an extensive land-based sand pumping network that was commissioned in the early 1980s.

Largely because the massive Durban harbour entrance piers prevent sand from moving up the coast to replenish naturally eroded beaches‚ the municipality has been pumping sand onto local beaches for several decades. This is acknowledged on the city’s own website‚ which records that the first artificial sand replenishment scheme began in 1935.

However‚ early schemes did not solve the erosion problem and eventually a major 3.5km pumping scheme was designed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to ensure that dredged sand could be pumped from the harbour as far north as Minitown.

But when the harbour mouth was widened in 2007‚ a critical sand hopper facility had to be demolished – and ten years later‚ Transnet has confirmed that a new hopper has not been commissioned yet.

The CSIR pumping scheme also includes at least four booster pump stations to shift the sand northwards. But eThekwini has now confirmed that at least two of these booster stations are no longer working – making it impossible for sand to be pumped further than Addington beach.

As a result‚ the current emergency pumping scheme has meant that Transnet dredgers have had to anchor directly off the beachfront and pump sand onto the beaches using temporary ship-to-shore pipelines installed by Subtech‚ an outside contractor .

Responding to written questions‚ eThekwini spokesman Mandla Nsele said the city’s booster stations were still in the process of being recommissioned.

“We do anticipate that we will need to fix some of the equipment in the booster station that has ceased (stet) and anticipate that the land-based scheme will come into operation by July.”

As a result‚ the city had awarded a R15-million contract to an outside contractor to assist the city and Transnet to pump sand onto the five beaches using a ship-to-shore pumping scheme.

In a separate response to questions‚ Transnet said the new hopper facility was undergoing final performance tests and was expected to be fully operational at the end of May.

Local businessman and fisherman Johnny Vassilaros has criticised the city and Transnet for the lengthy delay in reinstating the sand-pumping scheme‚ compelling ratepayers to incur extra costs for the current emergency scheme.

“Ever since they demolished the old sand-pumping hopper station in 2007‚ our coastal engineering department has been making one blunder after another‚ failing dismally in its primary function of replenishing the city’s beaches with sand‚” he charged.